Plasmons can be thought of as waves of electrons in a metal surface. More specifically, plasmons are charge density oscillations in a metal or other conductive materials. A light incident on a metal surface can generate plasmons similar to how wind incident on water can generate waves. Light can create plasmons, and the oscillating charges of plasmons can also generate light. The plasmonic-optical interactions give rise to interesting physics at the nanoscale. See also:
What is a Plasmon?
Nano-optics or nanophotonics is the study of light on the nanoscale. Typically visible light is limited by the diffraction limit and cannot be focused down to sizes smaller that about half the wavelength of visible light, less than hundreds of nanometers. Nano-optics deals with ways to overcome this diffraction limit in order to manipulate light at scales that are smaller than 100 nm. Plasmonics is one area of nano-optics. Plasmonic nanostructures can focus light to regions that can be less than 10 nm! Additionally, focusing light to such a small, highly-localized volume also generate extremely large optical enhancements in this nanoscale region. These enhancements can be used for applications including single molecule detectors
[1], enhanced spectroscopies
[2], cancer treatment
[3], and more efficient solar cells
[4].
Research in the Herzog Plasmonic Nano Optics Lab consists of:
See here for more information on these
Research Projects and Areas.
Interested in being part of the research group? See
How to join the Herzog Lab.
Dec, 2021 - Matutes Selected as Shaheen Scholar -
Joan Matutes has been selected as a
Shaheen Scholar through the
Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences for her proposal titled
The Effect of Finite Element Mesh Style and Size on Nano-Optic Computational Electromagnetic Simulations. Dr. Herzog and Joan Matutes gratefully acknowledge the gift provided by Yvonne and Riad Shaheen to support this work at the University of Indianapolis.
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Nov, 2021 - New Article in Journal of Nanophotonics -
Herzog group publishes paper in the Journal of Nanophotonics. This experimental work was conducted by Dr. French, and undergraduate Senior Meredith Magee made significant contributions to getting this work published. The work is titled
Plasmonic enhancement of photobrightening in CdSe quantum dots.
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Apr, 2021 - UIndy Seniors take home first place at National Robotics Competition -
A student team (Jonathan Key, Mechanical Engineering; Tyler Cole, Industrial & Systems Engineering; Laura Johnson, Mechanical Engineering; Ryan Kallenberger, Mechanical Engineering; also assisted by junior Mechanical Engineering major, Anthony WIlliamson) in Dr. Herzog's senior design class took home first place at the National Robotics Challenge World Championship in the Combat Robot Post-secondary level competition.
Read more here.
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Dec, 2020 - Chulhai and Herzog awarded 2020-2021 InQuery Grant -
Dr. Chulhai in the Department of Chemistry and Dr. Herzog have been awarded the 2020-2021
InQuery Grant by the Office of the Provost. Their project is titled
Importance of Atomistic Quantum Effects in Nanogap Arrays, and is an interdisciplinary collaborative project with undergraduate researchers.
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Oct, 2020 - Herzog Selected as 2020-2021 Provost Fellow -
Dr. Herzog has been selected as a 2020-2021 Provost fellow. The purpose of the award is to support leadership development for college and school-level administration as well as, more broadly, higher education administration. Herzog will have the opportunity to demonstrate his leadership potential through the implementation of his project that has two areas of focus: (1) Developing and preparing two new programs for ABET accreditation: Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, and (2) Exploring ways to integrate the Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences with the R.B. Annis School of Engineering. Read more
here.
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Aug, 2020 - Magee, French, and Furr publish work -
Herzog undergraduate group members, Meredith Magee ‘22 and Miles Furr ‘21, in collaboration with Dr. French, group alumnus, publish article for virtual SPIE conference
Plasmonically enhanced photobrightening using quantum dots.
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July, 2020 - Herzog Elected as SPIE senior member -
Dr. Herzog has been promote to a
2020 SPIE Senior Member for his many contributions to SPIE and the Optics community.
SPIE Senior Members are Members of distinction honored for their professional experience, their active involvement with the optics community and SPIE, and/or significant performance that sets them apart from their peers.
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